Program Error
by Ellcrys
Summary: As the real world is thrown into chaos, what's happening to the virtual world in Mugenjou? For the Day After Tomorrow fic challenge


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**Disclaimer:** Characters and situations ripped screaming from copyrighted works without permission for my own amusement and no profit while others egged me on.

**Warning:** Spoilers for the last arc of the anime, mild slash implications. And possibly a slight taint from the RP I play Masaki in, but it's hard to say.

**Notes:** Written for a fic challenge on LiveJournal, which involved taking characters from various fandoms who could potentially be living on earth in May 2004, and dropping them into the situations described in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". Kitarin had dibs on Ban and Ginji's trials (I originally intended to just do absurd Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles angstfic), so here's what happened back in Shinjuku...

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**Program Error**

Getting through the streets of Shinjuku is not difficult today. Sane people have taken refuge in their homes or inside any building with unlocked doors; any who were driving when the storm began have pulled their vehicles to the curb, unwilling to risk going on when one of the large hailstones could shatter their windshields or those of other drivers. 

At the moment, Kurusu Masaki is the only one moving on the street or sidewalk, and he's moving at a quick pace, holding a board over his head for protection as he runs. Already he can hear the wood splintering under the barrage, which has only gotten worse. If it gives way, so be it - in his lifetime he's endured injuries far beyond what most could have lived through, and blunt impact is less painful than, say, burning. Besides, he's quick, even if his age has slowed him a bit over time, and his reflexes and instincts are sharp. He can dodge most of it. 

The board does give way just before he reaches the entrance to Lower Town, and he discards it without pause as he dashes through the door that marks a barrier. He stops there - not to rest while he has a roof over his head to protect him, but to listen. Behind him, he hears the thud and crash of the hail still falling. Before him, he hears nothing. This might be a good sign, and he moves on to the back of the building, to the door that will take him fully inside. 

The sky is open above him, and he can see the dark clouds that were causing so much trouble Outside, but nothing falls in Lower Town. 

He breathes a sigh of relief, and relaxes. So the boy has managed to protect his people. Ironic that so many from the Outside feared Mugenjou, and now it's the only place in Shinjuku which is safe enough to serve as a refuge. 

Masaki is no savior, of course, even if he is a god become man. The good of the public is not his foremost concern, but the safety of those he cares for. In a moment he'll step back through the doors, where his cell phone will have better reception, and inform Teshimine Takeru that the virtual realities of Mugenjou do indeed hold against what has happened Outside, somehow. 

If he can get through, that is - when he'd left Teshimine, the man had been repeatedly calling Ginji's cell phone, trying to reach him and make sure that he was all right. There had been no answer, and though Teshimine merely frowned, Masaki knew him better than most - inside, he was nearly frantic. It hadn't helped when Masaki stated his intent to brave the storm, but Teshimine had understood. Teshimine had protected Ginji, and still tried to do what he could even today. Masaki, in his own fashion, had protected MakubeX - he needs to know now that the boy is safe. There was a kiss, unnaturally tender for the two of them, and then Masaki had gone. 

The calm weather inside Lower Town seems to indicate that MakubeX is well, and doing what he can. Or it could be Babylon City's intervention, Masaki supposes as he looks up at the tallest of the skyscrapers, in the center of Mugenjou. But he suspects that at such a time, they have their hands full simply protecting themselves; they wouldn't spare a thought for those below. Although he and Teshimine could have taken advantage of that safety once, Masaki feels no regret that they can't go back now, even in the face of all this. 

The momentary hiss of static and the smell of ozone causes Masaki to look around warily. One floor of the building to his left flickers, and through it he can see more of the large hail. Is he seeing something Outside, behind the building? Or is Mugenjou failing after all? Perhaps, he thinks, he should not call Teshimine just yet. 

The streets of Lower Town are even emptier than the streets of Shinjuku, despite the lack of hail. Masaki sees no one as he runs for the control center. What he does see makes his skin crawl. More buildings flicker and vanish, returning as no more than a wall of static fuzz or a transparent image that jumps and skips like the picture on a poorly tuned television. Now and then, a hailstone simply appears, falling ten feet through the air ahead of Masaki and then disappearing before it hits the ground. 

By the time Masaki arrives at the large doors, all the alarms are going off in his mind as to what he's going to find. The doors don't open for him, which is also not a good sign, and he pounds his fists against the metal, shouting his name for whoever may be inside, whoever may still be able to control their opening. After a few moments, which seems like far longer, the doors begin to slide apart. 

Their movement is more sluggish than Masaki recalls, and he waits only long enough for them to open wide enough to admit him before squeezing through and into the hallway beyond. He still holds out hope (curse them for giving him such a thing again, when he'd been so long without it) that perhaps the doors had been locked because there had been a raid, someone from the Beltline or some street gang trying to take advantage of the chaos. He hadn't been expected - why should the door have opened for him? 

When he reaches the end of the hallway, this door slides open easily, and he sees exactly what he feared he would see. 

Juubei must have been the one working the doors, because as always, he behaves like a samurai carrying out the wishes of his master. The other two are not so composed; Juubei's sister Sakura is weeping over one of the computers, unable to see the keyboard through her tears. Emishi sits with a hand over his mouth, staring in horror at the figure seated at the central computer. 

"MakubeX did what he could to adjust the environments in Lower Town to protect us from the hail," Juubei explains, and his voice is somber even for him. "But even if the environments are virtual, the equipment that keeps them running is physical." Masaki nods in regretful understanding, stepping closer to see. 

Like the buildings outside, the boy's body is transparent, jumping as a line of static runs through. His hands are poised over the keyboard, but his fingers don't move at all. For a moment he's someone else, then nothing but a patch of electronic snow, then he flickers back into visibility. Masaki can read the words on the monitor through the back of MakubeX's head - and they report critical hardware failure. The program has frozen. 


End file.
